Putting It Together Again
by Bookman230
Summary: With the revelation of the cluster gems, Pearl's freaking out, Garnet's freaking out, and Amethyst has to be the emotional rock- no pun intended. But sometimes things work out even when Amethyst is at the wheel. Post- Keeping It Together


Garnet was quiet. Big whup, right? Garnet was always quiet. It's her schtick. Amethyst was the loud funny one, Pearl was the tightly wound neat freak, Steven was the perfect little goofball, and Garnet was the deadpan fusion of a few perfectly placed words. So business as 'ush, right? Wrong. Because it wasn't the comfortable, cool, stoic, 'I'm Garnet, nothing bothers me, I'm awesome and always talking to myself anyway' quiet. It was the 'one step away from freaking out' quiet, and it was making Amethyst twitchy. And she was _already_ twitchy with Peridot and Kindergarten and Pearl giving another 'Kindergarten bad' speech. _She_ should've been the one in the 'one step away from freaking out' quiet, but Pearl was in 'Something's wrong with Garnet, nothing's ever wrong with Garnet, what's going on, are we going to die I AM ALREADY QUIETLY FREAKING OUT' mode, which meant Amethyst had to be the emotional center, which _hello_? Bad idea central!

It was uncomfortably quiet on the trip back to the pad. It was extra uncomfortable back in the temple. Amethyst was about to scream or make a Pearl joke or something when Garnet broke it first, looking at Steven and saying, "Steven? I need to brief the others."

"But I can help!" the little guy exclaimed.

"I know." She knelt down to his level. "But I can handle it myself. And _you,_ " she added with a little poke to his chest, "need to take care of your _own_ briefs." Steven giggled, and Amethyst couldn't fight back the little twinge of jealousy. Garnet was so _good_ with him. Five seconds alone with Amethyst and she gets her gem broken and scares the stuffing out of him.

"Okay. Laundry first. But check in with me later?"

"Promise." Steven nodded before running off, and then it was just the three of them.

"Garnet?" Pearl started cautiously and nervously. Good old Pearl, beating around the bush. Heh, no, more like beating around the _forest_. "Are you... is there something..."

"What's up, G?" Amethyst finished for her. Let Pearl go on too long, and by the time she got to the point Steven would be Greg's size. Sides, Garnet appreciated bluntness.

She looked away, though. Garnet actually looked away. Garnet's faced lava and monsters and annoying postmen and _never_ looks away. "We found out what Peridot's goal was."

"Wasn't it to check on the Kindergarten?" Pearl questioned.

"That was secondary. Her true goal was to observe and possibly extract experimental..." She trailed off, fists clenched. "Fusions."

" _What_?"

"Yeah, G, what are you talking about?"

"Homeworld has..." She paused. It looked like it was _painful_ for her to keep going. "...removed Crystal Gems from their graves and... forcibly fused them."

"You mean... the fragments we couldn't find..." Pearl looked horrified when she put it together, and Amethyst wasn't feeling any better.

"Yes. They were there. All this time." Her voice was _emotional_. All on the surface. This was hitting her hard. Amethyst stepped forward.

"G, this wasn't... it wasn't our fault. We didn't know!"

"And Steven _saw_ this? I knew we shouldn't have brought him on this!"

"He's a Crystal Gem," Garnet said firmly. "He handled it extraordinarily well. He was a great help."

"Was there... was there anyone we knew?" Pearl asked softly.

"...I don't know. I sent them to the temple for observation. And to see if Steven could... heal them, someday."

"They didn't _deserve_ this, Garnet!" Pearl shouted. There she went, lashing out at anything near her. Amethyst just looked between them, feeling helpless. She wasn't here for this. She was still in Kindergarten when they were fighting this part of the war. What was she supposed to say? Some stupid joke?

"I know."

"They were warriors, knights, comrades! We _buried_ them! They had an honorable death and now-"

"I _know_."

"But we _didn't_ know!" Pearl choked out tearfully. "They suffered for _centuries_ because _we never knew._ We left them to-"

A gauntlet fist slammed into the wall, and even Pearl's tears seemed to stop in their tracks. "I. Know." This silence was even worse than the rest. Pearl was sniffling and Garnet was seething and Amethyst was just... just _standing_ there, like some stupid little _kid_. She was a Crystal Gem, like them. She was an equal, even if she wasn't there. She had to do _something_ instead of just being... being _useless_. She stepped between them carefully.

"But we stopped it, right?" she asked encouragingly.

After a moment, Garnet nodded. "This batch. But it seems like Peridot might have extracted some of them, and she likely has at least one other site-"

"So we hunt her down and find them. We've got her on the _run_ , guys! She's just one nerd who can't even fight, and even with those fingers she can't run away forever. Right now, we saved these Crystal Gems. That's something, right?"

Pearl looked at her, wide eyed, before nodding slightly. "It is."

"So we'll save the others too! All we gotta do is take care of one lameo of a Gem. How hard can that be? I mean..." She looked down, grabbing their hands, "We're all one team, right? The Crystal Gems? We've got this?"

"We're the Crystal Gems," Pearl repeated.

"We've got this," Garnet agreed.

"Good." She dropped their hands, still averting eye contact and blushing purple. She _hated_ blushing. "Now, let's... let's cool off or something. Like your twirly water time, Pearl."

"It's a meditative dance that restores my focus and drive-" she started, indignant.

"That's what I said, right? Water twirly time?" Pearl looked like she was going to get into it, but then she just chuckled, and... smiled. Almost... fondly, or something.

"Oh, you." She brought her hand above Amethyst's head and paused, almost pulling it away for one uncertain moment, before bringing it down and ruffling her hair.

"H-hey!" Great, she was stammering now. "G, make her stop!"

"Pearl," Garnet indulged (yeah, Amethyst knew words like 'indulged', shut up).

"I'm stopping, I'm stopping," Pearl teased, ruffling it an extra time. Then she walked off to her room, and Amethyst couldn't fight a smile.

"You did good, Amethyst." Amethyst faced Garnet, eyebrow raised.

"What? By giving a cheesy speech?"

"Yes. We all need a little cheese in our lives. I thought you were the biggest advocate of that."

Amethyst chuckled. "You know it. Amethyst _loooves_ cheese!" Garnet smiled, but it didn't reach her nose (Garnet's smile reaching her eyes was, like, a once every century occurrence. Usually you had to settle for the nose). "But uh... you okay?"

The smile stopped, and she turned away. "Pearl was right."

"Huh? No way! We had no idea-"

"Not that. About Steven."

"No way for that too. He's a Crystal Gem. And he did good, right?"

"Only because I failed. I... I almost defused when I saw them." Woah. Emotional stuff hadn't gotten Sapphire and Ruby to defuse in... _forever_. "One took hold of my face. All I could do was... stare. Stare into..." she trailed off.

Amethyst put a hand on her arm, and Garnet looked down. "I'm gonna tell you what some pretty cool people told me. If... if fusion causes this, _if_ , _big_ if, instead of Homeworld and Peridot just being _way_ messed up... then you're the best thing to come out of it. And you're aren't them."

"I…" Garnet looked at her like she was taking every part of her in, all admiringly and searchingly and junk, and Amethyst felt bare, but… in a good way. "Thank you, Amethyst."

"Always. A-and besides! If Steven helped you keep it together- heh heh, nice pun, me- then it's great he was there!"

"He shouldn't have seen me like that. I should've handled it on my own."

"Doesn't someone say all the time that we're a _team_?"

"I hate it when you repeat my words back at me."

"Learned from the best." She let go of Garnet's arm and put her own behind her head. "Wanna play that cooking board game?"

"You hate that game," Garnet stated, in her confused monotone.

"Yeah. But you don't, so. I mean, only cause you and Steven are the only ones who ever win..."

"Garnet _always_ wins." She smiled down at Amethyst, one that reached her eyes. Amethyst stopped in her tracks. It was like seeing a shooting star, only even _more_ blinding and... and pretty. "Thank you, Amethyst."

"Y-yeah, I... I call playing the rat!" she shouted, rushing off to get the game and escape _emotions_. Garnet just chuckled behind her, and a smile spread across Amethyst's face. Not bad, me, she thought. Not bad.


End file.
